Maleficent V
Maleficent V was the name of what was once considered a whole planet, and it was located in a star system of the same name, though it has recently been known as one of the largest examples of planetary damage caused by Human beings. In 3219, prior to the Talahan Conflict, through means that are still not understood, but at least are thought to have been through artificial means, the entire planet was ravaged by some explosive force, enough to crack the planet in two. Such destruction had rarely been seen in any battlefield since the First Empire over a hundred thousand years before present. Maleficent V was not particularly populated with the exception of a robot army controlled by Artificial Intelligences. A small population of Insurrectionists inhabited small outposts all around the planet, but this population is believed to have perished when massive earthquakes destroyed whatever the actual blast had not. What was left of the planet was composed of rock tumbling in space, with the exception of several massive slabs at a thousand kilometers in length. No interest remains in the shattered remains of the planet. Some independent miners have taken a chance to make money extracting ore from the planetary debris field. Several areas of the debris field indicates that the strongest gravitational forces attracted smaller rocks to orbit around them. Miners tend to extract resources from free-floating rocks rather than the orbiting debris, which has proved to be a navigational hazard. Planetary Description Before its destruction in 3219, Maleficent V was not very notable as a planet. It was thought to be around four billion years old, roughly the same age as its star. It was dry, arid, and the air pressure was only sixty-eight percent that of Earth's. It was not considered habitable in the sense that it could naturally evolve complex life. In fact, the planet boasted no only microscopic flora and fauna, primarily a type of lichen that lived on the metallic oxide compounds in the crust. Any fauna was primarily extremophilic in nature which could take the harsh conditions. Because it had a thinner atmosphere, Maleficent V was open to large quantities of ultraviolet radiation and as a result, its o-zone layer was depleted long before it was discovered. Surface temperatures ran to over a hundred degrees Fahrenheit on average, with summer temperatures reaching over 170 degrees on the surface. Any exploration would require full body protection in environmental suits. In addition, the air was toxic, with a sizable amount of the atmosphere being composed of carbon dioxide - up to seventy percent, with only six percent of the atmosphere composed of oxygen. There were no free-standing oceans on the planet's surface, with the only bodies of water being heavily enriched by sulfur compounds thanks to nearby volcanoes. Water would need to be detoxified to allow for consumption, and even then, water tended to be recycled, and not released back into the toxic environment. The caps of the planet did have snow, but this was composed by carbon-dioxide instead of water snow. The result was that the precipitation was similar to that of Mars, but the difference between Maleficent V and the Red Planet was that on Mars, atmospheric density was so low that ice tended to sublimate into gas once the freezing point was reached. On Maleficent V, dry ice fell in snow, but thanks to the high temperature of the planet, any ice that did remain was not very large. It also orbited closer to its star leading to a shorter year of only 107 days and a day length that only lasted around twelve hours. By all accounts, Maleficent V was not a nice place to live for Humans, and the loss of the planet, even if the cause was believed to be weapons of mass destruction, caused very little tears to be shed. In fact, rebels that had once called the planet home even expressed comfort, expressing that one less hell-hole in the galaxy would be good for everyone. Trivia * Though mentioned several times as a horrible example of planetary destruction on a macro scale, Maleficent V, nor its remains, have ever been visited by the main characters. List of Appearances * Soldier's Log (First Mentioned) Category:Locations Category:Planets